Discussion on HRH Prince Charles engagement to Camilla Parker-Bowles

On Sunday, 13 February, 2005, Sir David Frost discussed HRH Prince Charles engagement to Camilla Parker-Bowles

Please note "BBC Breakfast with Frost" must be credited if any part of this transcript is used.

Ex-King Constantine of Greece

DAVID FROST: And we're now going to switch to Geneva. Wedding bells, we've heard, heard a lot about it as Eve said, will soon be peeling for the Prince of Wales and for Camilla Parker Bowles.

The Prince may have the royal prerogative, the divorce laws and a considerable amount of general goodwill on his side, but we'll be discussing the constitutional and Church implications in a moment.

But first to Geneva, where I'm joined by one of Prince Charles' closest friends, the former King of Greece, King Constantine of the Hellenes. King Constantine, good morning.

KING CONSTANTINE: Good morning to you David.

DAVID FROST: When you first - when did you first, indeed, hear the news - where were you and did you get advance warning? The story rushed out didn't it?

KING CONSTANTINE: I was in Paris, we were having an Olympic conference and I heard it there and I presume I must have heard it about the same time that you did and the rest of the world.

DAVID FROST: And what was, what was your reaction? Obviously pleasure.

KING CONSTANTINE: I am delighted. I am delighted for both of them and I wish them a long and happy life together. And I sincerely hope they're not watching now but I think that it's, it's a very good thing for both of them and for their families.

DAVID FROST: How, how will their lives, lives change by being married? I mean obviously they've been a loyal couple for a long time, but how will this change things for the better?

KING CONSTANTINE: Well I think it changes things in the sense that they can always be together in public life. I think that the couple will bring to each other happiness, I think it will bring companionship and friendship and above all love. And I think that now that they will be married it makes life much, much easier for both of them. And as you know he's got an extremely difficult job to do and in the future he will have an even more difficult job and I think peace of mind is an important thing for him.

DAVID FROST: And I mean having the Queen alongside you has made all the difference to your life, obviously.

KING CONSTANTINE: Absolutely, I mean it's nearly impossible to do this kind of job without that kind of support like he's going to have now. It's imperative and my family is a very united family and without that unity and love in the family it would not have been possible.

DAVID FROST: And did you feel that the titles they have chosen are appropriate or would you have preferred that she was going to be called queen?

KING CONSTANTINE: Well I think that that is something that really doesn't, it's not, none of my business really. I think that they will find the best solution for that problem.

But for me what has been quite remarkable is that - you know that I've been now in your country for nearly 30 years since I tried to restore democracy in Greece after the colonels were there, and looking at Britain with foreign eyes, I think that you're very lucky, you've got a lovely country, you've got great people, you know your, the British people stood by us before, during and after the Second World War and you've got an incredible sovereign with huge, vast experience in state affairs and great counsel and advice to give anybody who is prepared to listen to her.

I think that in the future the Prince of Wales, when his turn comes, you will find what I would have thought he is really the philosopher king. I have travelled with him throughout the world and in Britain on many occasions and he gives a hundred per cent of his time, his total commitment. And you know the whole purpose of what we do is service to the people and it's only valued if the people want it, otherwise there is no value to it, and obviously the people in your country want the system and I think they are the best people to have it.

Look at William and Harry, for instance, I think that my godson, through no fault of his own has got me as his godfather, is turning out to be a wonderful young man and it's got known of my responsibility that he is turning out to be a wonderful young man, that's his parents' job. And I think the happiness that is going to come in the family, you will see it also in the boys because both Prince William and Prince Harry, their love for their father, the most important thing for them is that he should be happy and I think that makes everybody else happy then.

DAVID FROST: Absolutely, the - and in terms of the, the upcoming ceremony, Windsor is a rather appropriate choice because it's steeped in history, really isn't it?

KING CONSTANTINE: It is indeed. Your country is one of the great examples of how a country evolves through the centuries in a very sensible and logical way, and I think that where they're going to do it is certainly steeped in history/

DAVID FROST: And in terms of them working together, people who have seen them together say that one of the great things, and this is in terms of the firm as it were, but one of the great things about them is the sense in which they are a great team, in a sense. I mean that they are each other's best friends as well as being a loving couple. Do you see it that way?

KING CONSTANTINE: That's very true. I do indeed. I think that's absolutely accurate, they are a good team and that helps both of them. She's a great lady, she's full of fun, she's always interested in how somebody else is doing, she always asks questions about other people's lives and she's got a great sense of humour and I think she will be great for him and I really am very happy for both of them.

DAVID FROST: How long have you known Prince Charles actually?

KING CONSTANTINE: I think the first time I met him was in 1960 when I first came to Britain after I won a gold medal. And then he came to Greece when my wife and I got married and he was of the best men, one of the crown bearers and he was, I think, 16 at the time. And then through the years we've got closer and closer.

DAVID FROST: Now apart from the human story which we were talking about there, there are other issues involved: the constitution, the question of the Church of England's attitude to the remarriage of its future supreme head, and to discuss these matters we are joined now from Cambridge by the Bishop of Oxford - not from Oxford by the Bishop of Cambridge, but he happens to be in Cambridge this weekend - and here in the studio the great historian Dr David Starkey. Very good to have you with us.

Let's begin with you and then we'll come to the bishop in a second or two.

Now all this debate about whether Camilla should be called queen or should be called princess consort or so on, which should it be, you feel is no contest, do you?

Historian, David Starkey

DAVID STARKEY: No, none at all, the law is completely clear and always has been. The wife of a king of England is queen. That was true at the time of the abdication, it was the rock on which the whole attempt to engineer a marriage between Edward and Mrs Simpson broke.

It was also clear, the wonderful story which had all, you know, royal marriages have been going on for ever with their problems, the marriage of Caroline of Brunswick and George IV was, it made Charles and Diana look like bliss and he tried to stop her being queen, he was told firmly he couldn't, she's your wife, she's queen.

DAVID FROST: She's queen.

DAVID STARKEY: He could stop her being crowned, he couldn't do anything else.

DAVID FROST: So that in your eyes, in your historical eyes, the moment that he becomes king she is queen.

DAVID STARKEY: And it will require legislation to stop it and it would, I think, be the worst possible start to a reign. My guess is, is that this is all a heading off operation. At the moment people are worried about Camilla as princess of Wales, Camilla as queen.

So what you do is you say, okay for the moment she'll just be Duchess of Cornwall, and by the way we would prefer she was princess consort, but by the time Charles is king, she's queen, well maybe opinion will have softened up, we'll be able to get away with it.

DAVID FROST: Yes things will change.

DAVID STARKEY: Things will change.

DAVID FROST: The reality will change and therefore the decision will change, will change as well. But historically, I mean all of these things, the Royal Marriage Act, all of those, I mean they, they still apply unless they have been, as you say, changed by an act of Parliament.

DAVID STARKEY: Unless they're repealed - and I think there's also another great reality which King Constantine referred to. The coronation, David, you and I so ancient we remember it -

DAVID FROST: Yes.

DAVID STARKEY: - it was an extraordinarily taxing service. The Queen was there alone for hours, as that kind of Japanese court ritual, a great Christian ceremony unfolded round her. It's terribly lonely eminence, to go through it with somebody else softens it, humanises it, makes it more bearable. And that should be the woman who is your wife.

DAVID FROST: Yes, that was a strong point King Constantine was making really, and in his own life, and in his own life as well that's important. But in general, you welcome the news that they're going ahead with this?

DAVID STARKEY: Yes, I think it's a bit impertinent we're all sitting here talking about other people's private lives, but obviously if you're a monarch, or you're a prince, private lives have a public dimension.

DAVID FROST: There's no such thing in this world.

DAVID STARKEY: There's no such thing as privacy. And clearly the status of a royal mistress at the beginning of the 21st century it awfully savours of Madam de Pompadour, doesn't it? But equally what we're doing with this notion that she's going to be duchess of Cornwall is also creating something else which is very unmodern.

It's the idea of a Morganatic marriage in which you've got a wife who isn't quite good enough to be beside her husband, isn't quite good enough to assume his titles. Now I think that's also very - it solves an immediate problem - but I think it creates a much more fundamental one. Nowadays women are equal, why isn't Camilla?

DAVID FROST: Or can you have a Morganatic marriage the other way round, indeed? It's ...

DAVID STARKEY: Well it doesn't exist in English law.

DAVID FROST: No.

DAVID STARKEY: It does not.

DAVID FROST: Well let's go to the Bishop for moment. Do you, we've heard from David Starkey there and from King Constantine. What's your reaction to this news?

Richard Harries, Bishop of Oxford

RICHARD HARRIES: As the Archbishop of Canterbury made quite clear in his public pronouncement, the Church of England very warmly welcomes this marriage and obviously wishes the couple every happiness in the future.

DAVID FROST: So very, very positive. And you don't think that, The Telegraph yesterday seemed to think there might be a bit of a fuss at the Synod this week, but you don't expect it to figure in the public debates, particularly in the official debates.

RICHARD HARRIES: I don't expect it to figure at all, no. After all the Church of England has agonised long and hard about the remarriage of divorcees who still have a partner living and they've decided, after that long and agonising debate, that it is quite compatible with the ethical teaching, with the loving ethical teaching of Jesus, and Charles and Camilla find themselves in the same position as many other people in our society now.

DAVID FROST: But they - would you, would you have wished in a way that the actual ceremony had been a church wedding or do you think that, bearing in mind the strong feelings, that this was the right solution - to have a church blessing?

RICHARD HARRIES: I think that the couple, together with the Archbishop, have made absolutely the right decision: that is to have first of all a civil ceremony, and I think it is very important just to bear in mind that according to the understanding of marriage in the Church of England, a civil ceremony is a true ceremony because according to the Church of England's understanding, the ministers of the sacrament, as it were, are the couple making their vows to one another before public witnesses, and that brings the marriage about.

So they are truly married but they've made the good decision, after that, to have a service of prayer and dedication, as it's called - like many, many other couples in this country asking for God's blessing on the marriage and offering their new life to God for that blessing.

DAVID FROST: Well one thing, Bishop, that's certainly going to come up at the Synod this week is of course the set subject indeed of women bishops and so on. How is, how is the feeling in the Church enclaves going on that subject at the moment?

RICHARD HARRIES: Well this debate this week is very preliminary David, setting out all the options and looking at the kind of theological rationale for it. I don't think there's any doubt about that the, the vast majority of people in the Church of England are very much in favour of the consecration of women bishops but there is a significant minority who remain opposed and will continue to remain opposed and I think the difficulty will be are we able to continue to have a Church of England which holds these two points of view.

There's a long way ahead, even if everything goes through smoothly, we're not going to have women bishops for ten years - I know it sounds an awful long time - we're not going to have them for ten, ten years, and in the end you have to get a two-thirds majority in each of the three houses, the Bishops, Priests and Deacons, and this debate this week is at a very, very early stage of it but thank goodness at least the debate is starting and we're getting down to it.

DAVID FROST: What about the sort of proposal that we could have women bishops but they wouldn't be allowed to become archbishops. Now is that sort of the worst of both worlds?

RICHARD HARRIES: I think that's a nonsense, a theological nonsense. I mean an archbishop is basically a bishop and in the Church of England he's not a pope, he's first among equals, and there are only three orders - bishops, priests and deacons - and archbishop is a, a bishop - a senior bishop but still a bishop.

And it makes, it would be absolute nonsense to preclude women from becoming archbishop if once they were allowed to become bishops.

DAVID FROST: And the church within a church idea that the Evangelicals could have a church within a church that didn't have any women bishops or even any women priests - does that make sense?

RICHARD HARRIES: Well I think the difficulty will be to find a form of church which makes this possible, if that's what eventually the General Synod wanted. I mean that, I think, is the thousand dollar question as to whether this is achievable, because it's one thing to have a church in which you have people who don't accept women priests but a bishop is regarded as the guardian of the faith and to be a member of the Church, a member of the Church of England, is to be in communion with your bishop, if, let us say, the archbishop was a woman, or at least the post was open to being a woman, how could people who are totally opposed to it regard themselves as in any sense within that same church? I think it's a, it's a very, very difficult problem to be able to solve.

DAVID FROST: Bishop thank you very much for joining us this morning.

RICHARD HARRIES: Thank you.

DAVID FROST: That was Oxford speaking from Cambridge, and thank you for being with us David. Tell me how would you vote on women priests?

RICHARD HARRIES: I don't care. [LAUGHS] Not being a Christian, I have no interest in the subject. I have an interest , a mild interest, in the Church of England - it's a bit like the monarchy, it's one of the great connected pieces of English history and one wants to keep it going. And all of these dreadful, visceral quarrels, I think the Church is a little bit like academic life, you know, it's governed in theory by the law of love and in practice by the law of malice.

Discussion Ends

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NB: this transcript was typed from a recording and not copied from an original script.

Because of the possibility of mis-hearing and the difficulty, in some cases, of identifying individual speakers, the BBC cannot vouch for its accuracy.

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